Field
Exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate to a liquid crystal display and a manufacturing method of the same, and more particularly, to a liquid crystal display and a manufacturing method of the same that may prevent overdevelopment of a light blocking member generated outside a display area, due to a use of a full tone mask, and design constraints, due to a use of a half tone mask, by improving a black column spacer (BCS) material.
Discussion of the Background
A liquid crystal display, among flat panel displays, may include two display panels with electrodes and a liquid crystal layer disposed therebetween. The liquid crystal display may be a display device that re-arranges liquid crystal molecules of the liquid crystal layer by applying a voltage to the electrodes to control an amount of transmitted light.
In the liquid crystal display, field generating electrodes may be provided on each of the two display panels. One display panel may include thin-film transistors and pixel electrodes arranged in a matrix form (hereinafter, referred to as a “thin-film transistor array panel”), the other display panel may include red, green, and blue color filters (hereinafter, referred to as a “common electrode panel”), and a common electrode may cover the entire surface of the common electrode panel.
However, in the liquid crystal display, since the pixel electrodes and the color filters are formed on different display panels, accurate alignment may be difficult between the pixel electrodes and the color filters. In order to prevent generation of an alignment error, a color filter-on-array (COA) structure, in which the color filter and the pixel electrode are formed on the same display panel, has been studied.
When the thin-film transistor array panel and the common electrode panel are assembled to be combined with each other, a black column spacer, such as a black matrix, may be manufactured to be larger than a predetermined size, due to an assembling margin. Since an aperture ratio may be decreased by the increased size of the black column spacer, the black column spacer may be formed on the thin-film transistor array panel.
A gap of liquid crystal layers between the two display panels may be referred to as a display area gap, and the display area gap may affect overall operational characteristics of the liquid crystal display, such as a response speed, a contrast ratio, a viewing angle, and luminance uniformity. If the display area gap is not uniform, a uniform image may not be displayed over the entire screen and deteriorate image quality. Accordingly, spacers may be formed at one of the two substrates to maintain the uniform display area gap over the entire area of the substrate. The spacers may include a main column spacer supporting two substrates and a sub-column spacer supporting the main column spacer.
In order to simplify a manufacturing process, the black column spacer such as the black matrix and the spacers may be simultaneously formed as the black column spacer. When the black column spacer includes the black column spacer, the main column spacer, and the sub-column spacer, multiple steps may be required to implement the black column spacer. To implement the multi-steps, a mask that may implement multi-transmittance and a material that may implement the multi-steps may be required.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the inventive concept, and, therefore, it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.